


triage

by kangeiko



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Holmes Brothers, Holmes Siblings, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Post-TFV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9698714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: Sherlock understands John's limitations.





	

It isn't really a problem for Sherlock that John makes such a petty, mean-spirited comment. John is in shock - they both are - and he cannot be judged for that. Sherlock understands John’s limitations, and for all that John is important to him, is a large part of all that he loves, he knows that John is incapable of putting his own feelings to one side. John blames Mycroft for this mess, however irrationally, and so he lashes out. It is expected. It is unfortunate, but it does not make him a bad person.

For Sherlock to know that, and accept that, and respond to his “what goes around, comes around” comment with one of his own - say, for instance, “no more so than for Mary,” - would be unkind. It would make Sherlock a bad person. A cruel person. And Sherlock - despite appearances to the contrary, and despite a bullet scar over his heart - does not want to be cruel. He can be grateful to John, in large part, for that. 

The other part...

The other part he is carefully unpicking in his mind palace, piece by unreliable piece. He cannot truthfully claim a betrayal on Mycroft's part when his own mind had surrendered so thoroughly, years ago.

There is an early memory that he has - one of the first that springs to mind, awkward and embarrassing and painful - of him falling to the ground in the kitchen, his hands clamped to his head. The pain had been excruciating to his small understanding of it, making him yell his rage and bewilderment. In this memory, he had been running blindfolded, and he had never been able to remember why he had done such a stupid thing. He only remembered the pain.

When he thinks on this memory again, prodding it carefully from several angles, the pasted-over edges are easy to see. The sharp corner of the table is the culprit, the one to blame for the pain in his head. The blindfold discarded on the floor, spotted with blood, is the accomplice. A game, he thinks. Blind man's bluff. But then, that must mean... 

Oh - it is easy to see her when he knows what to look for. There: on the table, crouched in the centre of it, is his baby sister, eyes intent. 

She must have climbed up, out of reach, and coaxed him into running to find her. It is a tall table, old and sturdy, with the corners just at the right height to pluck out the eyes of suggestible brothers. Obvious, really. 

She does not say anything in this new, unraveled memory. She simply watches Sherlock scream and scream until Mycroft comes running and gathers him up in his arms. "There, now," she says, or Mycroft says, or perhaps Sherlock says. (This part is not clear.) "There, now, it'll be all right."

He remembers, in a sudden rush that makes him stumble, the feeling of Mycroft's arms around him. The stinging pain of Mycroft's lips pressed against the cut, doing nothing, nothing, and yet the pain had faded just the same. Had this been something else he had forgotten?

"It'll be all right," he murmurs to himself, and John looks at him, confused. He hugs the shock blanket closer. "There, now." 

He can go back to that memory now, he knows. Now that he has reclaimed it, he can go back into it and remember the feeling of being someone's entire world.

And after he has reclaimed this memory, there is another, and another, and another.

(He has locked away so much of himself that he has looked elsewhere for, like a man filling a vessel with so many holes it could hold nothing but hope. He rather wonders how he has managed with what little he has permitted himself.)

So it isn't that a problem John says what he says, wrapped in a shock blanket and still shaking. Sherlock understands his limits and his self-interestedness in this, and he will not fight him on Mycroft's behalf. John isn't saying this because he thinks locking Eurus up was wrong - that stopping her from killing any more children was wrong - or that Mycroft was wrong to separate her from Sherlock. He's saying this because he has been inconvenienced by Mycroft not killing her outright. He has been put in danger by Mycroft putting family first, and this, he cannot forgive. 

Not when he counts himself as Sherlock’s family, more so than Mycroft could ever be. 

Sherlock understand this. 

(He still has the scars.) 

*

fin

**Author's Note:**

> Although I loved the character of Mary, and I fully believed how much Sherlock also loved her, I was never quite able to square away his jealous nature with how easily he gave up his claim to be the main person in John's life. And John, of course, is very free in his claims to be a simple man, but he's also a rather mean one, cheating on his wife (and feeling justified in doing so), wishing harm on Sherlock's brother in front of Sherlock, and so forth. His ability to be unpleasant and selfish and mean isn't really something that is remarked upon in the show, but I always found it interesting. And Sherlock... well, it's one thing to be awful and cruel to a sibling. It's another thing to listen to someone else being awful and cruel about them. I don't think that it's coincidence that Sherlock responds to John's petty little cruelty with a show of his loyalty and concern for Mycroft.


End file.
